What’s really wild is just the wide range of threat levels one may encounter. Some of those guys seemed like they were just odd and pretty non-threatening, while others immediately go for physical contact even after being told “no”. A woman has no idea what to expect when a man approaches her; is he just going to say something weird and walk away to never be heard from again, or is he going to attack her if she rejects him? There’s a huge margin of danger for every encounter. And then guys who have never had to keep their guard up a day in their lives wonder why women on the street seem so cold to them.

I’m very much of the opinion that more women should carry.

Oh, I thought that was an old coffee filter somebody threw in the corner.

I think I’m gonna go puke my pants now.

Violence against Nazis is justified.

Spongebob: Patrick, your genius is showing!

Patrick: [Covers crotch] Huh, where?!

He’s just spotting. “Three more reps, bro! You got this!”

We won’t get a new F-ZERO until Mario Kart stagnates. Miyamoto once said something to the effect of Nintendo not wanting to have two racing games compete with each other.

For some reason the student makes the exact same typo every week.

Because evidence can be selectively mishandled, now that there’s a playbook for it.

Well that’s a frightening precedent.

Where will you take those goalposts next?

^ That was rhetorical.

You will not have enough money and political power to continue buying the loyalty of the Russians, as you have done for 26 years. We will do everything to ensure that the world takes care of this.

As you yourself say, “we need to crunch the numbers.”

[…]

We know that 63 percent of your losses on the front are killed, and only 37 percent are wounded. In the 21st century, armies cannot afford such a balance. In the future, the share of those killed will increase.

[…]

Many did not believe that Ukraine would hold out for so long on defense.

You did not believe. And those who advised you did not believe it either. That was a mistake.

[…]

You are the first Russian ruler who was forced to turn to Pyongyang for help.

And today you are completely dependent on China — also for the first time in Russian history.

[…]

You were hoping for internal unrest in Ukraine, but it was your own military formations that rebelled against you. June 23 will be another anniversary, and silence will not erase this fact from history.

[…]

If you personally do not agree that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue to fight for its existence. We will have those who will support us.

But you will also have to fight much more for your existence — not Russia’s, but your own. And this is not a threat from me or Ukraine. These are facts of Russian history that you know well: when Russia gets tired, changes happen.

We can work on such fatigue.

You can stop your war.

Eternal memory to all whose lives were taken by this war.

Glory to Ukraine!

Bits that stuck out to me. Zelensky knows that empty threats and ego challenges, alone, won’t phase Putin, so he’s hitting hard with irrefutable math and history.

I just hope that this message reaches the Russian people. They need to see that Putin has zero options out of this war that don’t come at the cost of their own lives, and pressure him from within to back down.

Rats instinctually know to hop off a sinking ship.

I wish I could get a candy with the texture of peanut butter M&M’s with the flavor of Reese’s peanut butter. Reese’s Pieces are harder than I like, but the M&M’s have the perfect crunch, IMO.

Cottage cheese and garlic salt for me

Not trying to yuck your yum, but what even leads one to try mixing these together? This sounds like a pregnancy craving sort of invention. When my mom was pregnant with me, she tells me she would make scrambled egg and mustard sandwiches. It sounded insane to me, but I tried it and actually love it, and now that’s my weird guilty food. :)

It’ll sound like a low rumbling of bubble wrap shifting across the lands.

Oh, so now we’re at the “pachinko isn’t gambling because you have to go across the street to get cash for your prizes” argument. Knew we’d eventually get there.

You see, in Japan, pachinko parlors are “technically” not gambling because you exchange your winnings for cheap toys, similar to exchanging tickets at the Chuck E Cheese counter. Except there’s a store directly across the street from the pachinko parlor that buys those toys for, well wouldn’t you know it, the exact amount of your winnings!

And since it’s “not gambling” in the eyes of the law, it’s not damaging, right?

https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article-abstract/49/suppl_1/i17/105541

Conclusion. This study revealed that the prevalence of pathological gambling, especially among men, was much higher in Japan than in other countries. Pachinko was very popular and was strongly suggested to have contributed to this heightened prevalence.

Oof.

Yes, it’s still gambling even if you have to access a grey market to obtain fiat currency. Why? Because obtaining fiat currency isn’t a defining factor of gambling.

Where will you take those goalposts next?

If it’s gambling, loot boxes should be items of value, redeemable for cash, correct? And Valve should be the one providing that cash, as they are the child casino, correct?

Yes, that’s literally how the Steam marketplace works. Where am I losing you?

Holy shit, Gabe’s really got you by the balls, eh. We’ve reached the “actually lootboxes aren’t gambling” arc.

Insane, the lengths some will go to defend shitty behavior from shitty billionaires.

We’re really far from the point now.

I’m a millennial parent and I know how the internet works. I also know that every app nowadays has parental controls built in. Moreso, I can specifically block things on the router.

Remember how you found ways to circumvent those things in your youth without your parents knowing? Guess what? Kids still do that. Parental controls only work on children who lack creativity.

You aren’t going to be there 100% of the time for your kids. No parent would be. It would be abusive to be present 100% of the time. You’re going to trust your kids with a certain level of autonomy, and they’re occasionally going to do things with that autonomy that you disapprove of; that’s an important part of growing up. Maybe it’s swearing, maybe it’s getting into fights, maybe it’s cheating on homework, or maybe it’s buying lootboxes. You can’t block everything.

Nobody’s saying that you shouldn’t try to prevent your kids from falling into these traps. By all means, you should. But you shouldn’t expect to be successful 100% of the time. You’re going to slip. They’re going to slip. That’s life.

However, the fucking CHILD CASINO still exists. Maybe you can keep your kids out of it, but there are still kids getting addicted to gambling because nobody is shutting down the child casino. The fact that it exists, at all, should be appalling to any parent; but instead, some of them are defending it because “ohh but they did some good things for Linux gaming”. Get real, my guy.

I think a lot of that comes down to our ability to make personal comparisons. When you’re 10 years old, a year is 10% of your entire lived experience. When you’re 50 years old, a year is just 2% of your life. Life feels like it goes faster as we age, because we have so much more to compare it to as we grow older.